‘Welcome to Terschelling.’
Chief Inspector De Zoet’s a more skilled, and willing, host than Stuppor.
They shake, then climb into the back of the waiting patrol car. Space restrictions mean the chopper wasn’t able to put down right by the harbour itself; the pilot had taken one look at it and said ‘No way.’
‘Food? Drink?’ De Zoet asks, having given the driver the go-ahead. He hands Jaap a paper bag, folded neatly across the top.
Jaap takes it, suddenly aware he’s ravenous. He pulls out a bottle of chocolate milk and some kind of pastry which looks like it’s studded with rabbit droppings.
‘Cranberries,’ says De Zoet, noticing Jaap’s scrutiny. ‘You just can’t get away from them here. Every damn thing you eat has a fucking cranberry in it.’
Terschelling, the pilot had told him earlier, was famous for very little, the exception being that in the mid-nineteenth century a barrel of cranberries had washed ashore from a nearby shipwreck. An enterprising local had decided to see if he could cultivate them and soon found that the tart berries liked the climate and soil. Now the island produces cranberry-everything in a desperate attempt to differentiate itself in the minds of tourists from its rival islands.
‘Rotterdam, born and bred. The old story, fell for an island girl. Only back then I didn’t mind the whole cranberry thing so much. Sixteen years in, I’m starting to mind. I’ve gotta say, though, I’ve never had a UTI, so maybe it’s not all bad.’
Jaap takes a bite, decides it really isn’t so bad. Especially as he can’t remember the last time he’s eaten. The pastry disappears, the chocolate milk loosening the dry crumbs sticking in his throat.
‘So,’ Jaap says, dropping the empty bottle back into the paper bag, ‘tell me.’
‘The boat you’re after, the Vrijheid, called into the harbourmaster here about twenty minutes ago.’
‘Saying?’
‘Saying they wanted to dock. He gave them the OK, then got on the phone to me. I’ve got men there in case it comes in before we arrive.’
Three minutes later they pull up by a red-brick building, the harbourmaster’s office. De Zoet turns off the engine and radios his crew. The message comes back that a boat is just now entering the harbour itself.
‘Tell everyone to stay out of sight,’ Jaap says, getting out of the car, feeling the strong offshore breeze.
De Zoet gives the order and walks with Jaap over a rickety wooden bridge onto the floating jetty. It’s about 200 metres long, with shorter jetties running off at right angles. At the junction of each, a pair of ground lights stand guard, illuminating a small patch of boards and the odd hull.
De Zoet nudges Jaap with his elbow, points out into the darkness. It takes a few seconds for his eyes to adjust. But then he catches it, the outline of a boat moving in, the mast bare, the sound of the engine hidden beneath the wind. They move quickly along the jetty, heading for the only free mooring spot, right up at the end.
The boat beats them there, and they watch a figure leap ashore. He busies himself tying up, and is finishing by the stern, his back to them as they approach. Jaap can see the boat looks the same as the Vrijheid, though it’s too dark to read the name.
‘Daan Brouwer?’ he shouts into the wind.
The figure stiffens, then straightens up and pivots round, rope coiled at his feet like a snake.
His face matches the photo. It’s Brouwer.
He takes in Jaap, and De Zoet next to him in full uniform, his eyes widening in shock.
‘Inspector Jaap Rykel, Amsterdam Police. We need to talk,’ Jaap says, moving forward.
Brouwer takes a step back.
His left foot slips off the edge of the wooden jetty. For a moment he’s impersonating a windmill with his arms, then he goes over backwards, a foot catching the rope he’d been tying the boat up with.
A brief lull in the wind allows Jaap to hear a strangled cry cut short by a thudding impact.
He rushes to the edge, De Zoet there with him, and grabs Brouwer’s foot which caught in the rope. Brouwer’s hanging upside down, his head against a vertical iron support, rough with rust and molluscs. There’s no movement as they drag him up and over the lip.
They lay him face down, and De Zoet flicks on a torch.
It’s clear why there’s no movement. The back of Brouwer’s head is partially crushed, bone splintering on impact with the hard edge of the iron. There’s blood everywhere.
They flip him on three. De Zoet obliges with the torch, illuminating Brouwer’s face.
Jaap presses two fingers into Brouwer’s throat whilst De Zoet calls in medical. There’s a distinct lack of pulse. Jaap looks up at De Zoet and shakes his head.
‘Dead,’ he says.
The paramedics arrive quickly, and confirm the diagnosis. Jaap is standing a few feet away when he feels his phone going off; he sees it’s Arno.
‘Been doing a bit of digging,’ Arno says when he answers. ‘You know the video of Heleen dancing? I’ve been talking to a few people who were on the beach that night, and they remember the guy filming her.’
‘Brouwer.’
‘Uh … that’s the thing, I showed them a photo of him, and they said not. For a start the guy had hair. But there’s worse.’
‘Worse how?’ Jaap asks, wondering how it is he’s seen two suspects die in front of him in as many days.
‘I did some background on Brouwer. He’s guilty of the mutilation, it’s clear that he and Heleen were in contact. But he can’t have killed her.’
‘Why not?’
‘He was on the mainland when it happened; he didn’t step off the ferry back onto Vlieland until two hours after her death had been called in. I’ve got it all on camera.’
It’s like his head’s been invaded by junk. None of this is making any sense.
‘I’m gonna call you back,’ he finally manages.
‘Bad news?’ De Zoet asks.
He doesn’t know if it’s been minutes or hours when his phone goes off.
De Zoet had got him a room in a small hotel just off the harbour, and he doesn’t even remember falling asleep.
He reaches for his phone, noticing he’s still fully dressed, and squints at the screen, which is telling him two things: the first is that it’s past midnight, the second that the person calling him is doing so from the Police Commissioner of Amsterdam’s office number.
‘Sorry to call you so late,’ says Commissioner Bergsma when Jaap’s answered.
‘Early,’ Jaap says.
‘What?’
‘It’s early.’
‘OK then, early. Where are you currently?’
‘In bed.’
‘In bed where?’
‘Some island. I can’t remember what it’s called because I’ve been working straight for—’
‘Well, you’re going to need to get off that island and onto the mainland. If you tell me exactly where you are I’ll get a helicopter out to you.’
Jaap sits upright.
Tanya, he thinks.
Maybe that’s why he’s not heard from her. Maybe something’s happened.
‘What’s this about?’ he says, his heart thudding, the pressure in his head immense.
‘A body of a young woman was discovered in Gelderland earlier this evening. Given the circumstances of her death the local inspector called it in to us.’
Jaap sinks back onto the bed, the cheap springs squeaking in displeasure. His mind’s working. Gelderland is about as far east as you can go in the Netherlands without hitting Germany, which means …
All of a sudden he knows what’s coming next, and is about to speak but the commissioner gets there first.
‘The girl died of suffocation. And they ran an urgent tox test, which came through ten minutes ago.’
Jaap’s up, the weight of his body monumental but his mind cranking to life, already going back to what Arno had told him earlier, what this means, what …
‘Don’t tell me,’ Jaap says. ‘I don’t want to know.’